the trade balance registered a deficit of about $6 billion. exports fell 6.9% while imports were up about 0.8% from the previous year. as a result, the ministry said the current account surplus for the whole of 2012 was down for two years in a row. now u.s. stock prices ended lower. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly a third of a percent to end the day at 13,944 on thursday. that's after poor productivity data as well as comments from the ecb president which sent the euro lower. for more and for how stocks are trading here in tokyo, we are going to ramin mellagard at the tokyo stock exchange. we have had two pull-backs. are we headed for another? >> it looks like it. the drop we have seen in trade appears like that. the 2% drop in productivity for the fourth quarter in the u.s. as well as those slightly taken as negative comments from ecb president mario draghi may have more bite. we are definitely seeing that in the opening levels. let's have a look at those. 11,247. less than 1% on the nikkei. topix at 961. we had more than 400-poi